Gonçalves, Joseane Penteado Rosa, Melo, Antonio Diego Brandão, Yang, Qinnan, de Oliveira, Marllon José Karpeggiane, Marçal, Danilo Alves, Ortiz, Manoela Trevisan, Righetti Arnaut, Pedro, França, Ismael, Alves da Cunha Valini, Graziela, Silva, Cleslei Alisson, Korth, Nate, Pavlovikj, Natasha, Campos, Paulo Henrique Reis Furtado, Brand, Henrique Gastmann, Htoo, John Kyaw, Gomes-Neto, João Carlos, Benson, Andrew K., and Hauschild, Luciano
Simple Summary: Poor sanitary conditions (SC) in modern swine production can be associated with a variety of factors, including but not limited to: poor biosecurity protocol and management, erratic production logistics/workflow, ineffective cleaning and disinfection protocols, endemic respiratory and enteric diseases, and nutritional program inadequacy for the genotype × environmental interactions present in any given production system. Since nutrition is a large contributor to pig production cost and profitability, and it directly alters pig health individually and at the herd level, it has the potential to alter pig performance under poor sanitary conditions. Threonine, methionine, and tryptophan surplus supplementation did not affect performance nor immune or fecal microbiome parameters on high-sanitary-status pigs housed under good SC. However, our study supports that hypothesis by demonstrating that functional amino acids surplus supplementation improved the performance of piglets housed in a nursery mimicking a poor sanitary condition. Overall, an increased supply of key amino acids can be a viable nutritional strategy for commercial swine production, which is often under immune challenge conditions. A sanitary challenge was carried out to induce suboptimal herd health while investigating the effect of amino acids supplementation on piglet responses. Weaned piglets of high sanitary status (6.33 ± 0.91 kg of BW) were distributed in a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement into two similar facilities with contrasting sanitary conditions and two different diets. Our results suggest that increased Trp, Thr, and Met dietary supplementation could support the immune systems of piglets under a sanitary challenge. In this manner, AA+ supplementation improved the performance and metabolism of piglets under mixed management and poor sanitary conditions. No major temporal microbiome changes were associated with differences in performance regardless of sanitary conditions or diets. Since piglets often become mixed in multiple-site production systems and facility hygiene is also often neglected, this study suggests that increased Trp, Thr, and Met (AA+) dietary supplementation could contribute to mitigating the side effects of these harmful risk factors in modern pig farms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]